Europe Trip - Amsterdam
Thursday, December 29, 2011

30 Dec 2010 - Paris to Brussel, then to Rotterdam, then to Einhoven

Last stop in our Europe trip is my sis's current residence at Einhoven (Amsterdam). Woke up very early to go to the train station to take Thalys (express train to Brussel then to Rotterdam before changing the internal Amsterdam train.The train network & seats in Europe are pretty big & on time (minus the hiccup in Epernay).

Finally.. reached my sis's apartment! Love her apartment to bits. Nice view & home by yourself is really nice.

After putting down our luggage, we went out to shop & had a buffet dinner at Einhoven central. Came back with bags full of Zara and H&M clothes, perfumes & lotsa body shop lotions (mum bot for my aunts).

31 Dec 2010 - Amsterdam

The next day, we took a 1hr train to Amsterdam and spent the whole day shopping!

Some phototaking by the river..

Lunch at Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam.. the 1st hard rock cafe I went & I love the culture & food.

After lunch, we took the train back to Einhoven.

My Loots from Europe Trip... hope to go back again.

Last night in Europe was home cooked food with love & toasting to Rose Champagne!!! <3

Ending off with my Christmas gift for Dear last year.. Wallet from Mont Blanc. *love*

p/s: i was testing whether my blogspot account can upload photos & surprisingly the account is full error msg no longer appear. yeah! means I can continue blogging! *grinz*

posted by Zephyr @ 10:27 PM, ,

Europe Trip - Paris (Part III)

29 Dec 2010 - Epernay

Took a 2hrs train to Epernay for Moet & Chandon tour & reached the little town just before lunch.

We ate at this French restaurant that's super duper good.. until now I'm still loving the escargot.

Luckily we reached slightly before lunch & managed to get a table before the lunch crowd. Ambiance was nice too. We ordered 2 flasks of rose wine to share & it was nice. Cheers!

We ordered a 3 course set meal each & it was soooo good!!!! But the serving time was a little long.. I guess French people like to sit down & talk during meals. We took 2hrs plus to eat lunch & were nearly late for our tour.

First up were the appetizers. We order different appetizers so that we could try all of them. Mine was the smoked salmon, my mum's was foie gras with prawns & avocado & my sis's ham was the worst. Actually I think the ham is not that bad.. juz that maybe the serving was too much for an appetizer. My sis & I ordered escargot on top of the set lunch to share & it was delicious! I love the herb thingy they use to cook the escargot. Simply heavenly & I don't mind going Epernay again & this restaurant specifically for the escargot.

Next was the main course & we were so boring we all ordered the same dish because we didn't understand what the rest of the dishes were. The menu was in FRENCH & the waitress can't really speak English. Nonetheless, the salmon was nice & the pasta was very well cooked & flavored too (although it looks plain here).

Lastly, we had to ask the waitress to serve dessert & we basically gobbled our dessert up because we were running late. Then we practically ran to the Moet factory.. luckily the waitress gave us some directions. If not, we'll be so lost.

At Moet & Chandon..

Tourof how champagne is made.. the cellar was HUGE!

After the tour, we had champagne tasting. We registered for the same type of champagne tour thinking if we register diff ones, we'll be brought to diff cellar. Actually the type of champagne is what we get to drink at the end. So some groups actually ordered diff so they can share & try a variety. Nonetheless, we bot a bottle of rose & a bottle grand so we got to try all too!

The normal Moet & Chandon champagne in their signature flute. Cheers!

And then it's time to leave Epernay.. so sad. I like this place. Snowy & cold outside.

Reached the train station & was told the train employees went on STRIKE! So our trains were cancelled. We spent 1 hr waiting at the station before taking a cab back to Paris & the cab fare cost us ard 250 euro.

Day started well but didn't end too well.